Off Guard
by Jolie
Summary: Mark and Mimi's relationship, post-RENT.


I'm back! Finally settled in at college with an internet connection, so updates to my old, very un-updated stories should becoming shortly.   
  
Um, this bizarre little story woke me up in the middle night a few months ago and refused to go away until I had written it down. I found it in some old files and figured I'd post it. I have no idea where the heck it came from, but here it is anyway. Blame the cold medicine I was on!  
  
These characters, sadly, are not mine. They're all Jonathan Larson's.  
  
* * *  
  
It caught us all off-guard.  
  
Mimi's T-cell count had been dangerously low for a long time. We all knew she would be the next to go - so did she - though none of us ever spoke the words out loud. We just quietly tried to prepare ourselves for it, saying goodbye to her everyday in our own ways. No one was ready for Roger; no one saw it coming.  
  
It's all still a blur for me. I only remember coming home and finding him passed out on the living room floor. I remember feeling frozen andhearing my camera hit the ground, and then I woke up in a yellow plastic chair in the emergency room. I must have called 911 or carried Roger to a cab; I must have called Collins and Maureen from the pay phone near the vendingmachines; I must have paged Mimi at work. But I don't remember.  
  
Maureen was holding my hand tightly when I woke up, more for her own comfort than my own. Mimi looked hollow and ravaged – stunned - the way that Ifelt. Joanne and Collins were both sipping coffee silently, their eyes distant and preoccupied. We sat there for a long time, none of us speaking or even breathing, until a doctor came and told us that we could see him, that we _should_ see him.   
  
I went first. I don't know to this day how I managed to stand and walk into that room, knowing that he was in there dying. I had always known that the day would come, but I don't think that I ever really let myself believe it. Losing Roger - _Roger_ - was inconceivable to me. Roger was the only person who really knew me, and in a way I was afraid that in losing him I would lose myself.   
  
We barely spoke. It seemed like no one spoke that day. There are a million things I can think of now that I should have said to him, but at the time it almost seemed unnecessary. I remember he held me for a long time, told me that he loved me, told me to be happy. I was completely numb. I just buried my face into his shoulder and pretended that it wasn't happening.  
  
The funeral was strange. When Angel died, I felt every emotion of it acutely, but when I lost Roger it was like I couldn't feel anything at all. I was numb again. I couldn't feel the rain or Mrs. Davis pulling me into a desperate hug or my eyes burning. I couldn't even feel Mimi clutching my arm as though it was all that was keeping her from shattering into a million grief-stricken pieces.  
  
She moved in with me. It made perfect sense to both of us. We barely even talked about it at the time; it just sort of happened. We were each left with huge holes in our lives after Roger died, and neither of us wanted to be alone. It worked out perfectly. Mimi cooked and I cleaned, and sometimes at night we would hold each other until we both fell asleep. In a way, when we were together we could find Roger again.   
  
The first few months were hard. She was always so pale, like she was experiencing it over and over again. I was living in a kind of haze that kept me from feeling or remembering anything. She quit drugs, quit partying and dancing. Mimi stayed in the loft with me at night, and she would hold my hand as we talked or read or did whatever we were doing. I could tell that her thoughts overwhelmed her while I was away at work by the look in her eyes when I got home, so I taught her how to use my camera. We made movies of our friends and made up stories about strangers we filmed in the park. She loved to make movies, and I would invariably come home to reels of footage. We talked about Roger a lot. We talked a lot about anything, everything.   
  
She told me about how she had run away from home when she was fifteen because her father liked to hit her. I told her about how my father never talked, unless he was drunk, which was when he screamed. She had wanted to be a ballet dancer, and her mother worked three jobs to pay for the lessons. I converted my bathroom into a darkroom in junior high and used to lock myself init for hours at a time. She laughed, embarrassed to be admitting it, when she told me how surprised she had been when she met me. I knew what she meant; it had always baffled me why Roger had chosen me as a friend too. She laughed again when I had told her that if he hadn't snatched her up first I would have gone for her myself. She knew that without Roger we never would have even noticed the other on the street. She told me how much she wanted to be a mother, and I think we both cried. We told each other things we had never told anyone else, late at night, not even looking at each other but tangled up together on the couch or her bed.  
  
"Did you love him Mark?" she finally asked me. "Really love him?"  
  
I sighed heavily. "Yeah."  
  
"So did I."  
  
"I know."  
  
I remember the first time she kissed me. We were lying together on her bed like we often did, talking about something ridiculous like the weather, when she leaned over and kissed me softly with smiling lips. I was stunned, frozen. She gave me a few small, unsure kisses before I began to respond and pulled her closer. It was bizarre. It wasn't the kiss of a lover, but the feel of her lips on mine was so comforting and felt so natural that I didn't want her to ever stop. I felt safe with Mimi's arms around me. She understood me and what I was feeling more than anyone else, and it felt good to touch her. We kissed for a long time that night and then just lay beside each other until we fell asleep.  
  
That was how it happened. We weren't in love; we had a perfect friendship, and we were both still losing him. Mimi always tried to encourage me to talk to pretty girls we saw when we went out for coffee, nudging me toward them and admonishing me for my shyness. She had so much more confidence in me than I ever had in myself. She knew she would be gone someday - someday soon - and I would be alone again. Mimi understood me well enough by then to know what it would be like for me, and she grew to fear my loneliness as much as I secretly did. There was a sort of desperation to her efforts, but I didn't want to meet anyone. I just wanted her to stay with me forever, and she knew that too. I loved her of course, more than I've loved almost anyone in my entire life, but as the friend who understood me and shared my life with me, the same way that she loved me. She told me that constantly, as if she feared I would forget it. Every time she left the loft and before we fell asleep at night she would whisper in my ear or against my cheek how much she loved me.   
  
We were really the only people who understood what was going on between us. Maureen and Collins and Joanne were baffled, though they tried to hide it with supportive smiles and casual lunches. But we knew that they couldn't figure out if we were a couple or not. We weren't, just friends who comforted each other by kissing and making love.   
  
I know it sounds strange, but it was the most natural thing in the world to us. I found a companion who loved me, and she found the stable relationship she had always needed. We supported each other, kept each other company, helped the other find Roger again. She held me tighter when Collins died and when Joanne moved to D.C. She let me wrap my arms around her while we slept, and I let her kiss me whenever she felt lonely. We were each exactly what the other needed.   
  
But now I'm alone again.  
  
  
**Any comments would be loved and appreciated!**  



End file.
